This debonair little fellow is me before I discovered the Beatles and grew my hair long!

Besides finding out that I live in Santa Cruz County, California, and that I'm a huge Beatles fan, read on to learn more...

MUSIC

Music is a big part of my life; besides collecting tons of CD's, I play bass and guitar with extreme mediocrity. To make up for my limited talents, I collect guitars and amps that provide the classic vintage tones of my favorite bands. You can see an out of date sample of my gear here. I really enjoy playing lots of Fab Four tunes at the occasional Beatles Tribute shows I play with my musician buddies. Besides the Beatles, I also like to play Rockabilly (Elvis Sun period, Rock n' Roll trio, Carl Perkins, etc.), Sixties and Seventies classic rock, and especially Power Pop (The Jam, Matthew Sweet, Myracle Brah, Smithereens, etc.). The sound of a Rickenbacker twelve string through a Vox AC-30 has got to be one of the most perfect sounds in the universe!

I've been dabbling in home recording for a few years, and I've currently got a small (very small) home recording studio using ProTools. My writing and recording comes in fits and starts, and progresses slowly due to the fact that I'm not a drummer, and my home studio is too small for a drum kit (thank goodness for drum machines; anyone out there ever use Digidesigns Strike drum software?) Someday, I hope to record enough original tunes to make an album length CD. You can hear a sample of a song I wrote a few years back here. You can also hear some Beatle covers I played on here. Lastly, you can see a video clip of my friends and I playing a George Harrison tribute show here.

MOVIES/TV

My first job was in a movie theater; I saw everything from classic Marx. Bros. films to cult films like "Switchblade Sisters" and "Rocky Horror Picture show" before they were cult films. I also watched way too much television as a child. I enjoy just about any film with Humphrey Bogart in it, as well as Laurel and Hardy , Star Wars , and Ed Wood, to name a few. Some of my favorite tv shows are: Lost in Space , Dark Shadows, the Monkees , Outer Limits, and Twilight Zone.

CARTOONS

I'm a big fan of classic cartoons, and I have most of my favorites on DVD. I find Disney's animation starting around 1937 through the 1950's to be consistently superior and visually impressive. Having said that, I feel that the classic Warner Brothers shorts from the mid-1930's through the 1950's had the funniest characters, best music, and were the most consistently enjoyable cartoons of all time, even if some of the gags in WB cartoon are dated or occaisonally fail to amuse. In my opinion, there are far more boring, bland, and just plain unfunny (is that a word?) cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck (separately, they were pretty good teamed up along with Goofy) than there are bad Warner Bros. cartoon (and that includes Bosko!). If that's sacreligous, so be it. The (mostly) black&white Fleischer cartoons from the 30's and early 40's featuring Betty Boop, Popeye and Superman are in a class by themselves, being both visually and humourosly onorthodox and adventurous. I sure wish more of them were available on DVD officially. The most outrageous, flat out funniest cartoons I've ever seen are the Tex Avery directed MGM cartoons of the 40's and 50's. Those too are under represented on DVD.

As for TV cartoons, I like early Hanna-Barbera stuff like Huckelberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quickdraw McGraw, Flintstones and the original Jonny Quest series. The funniest TV cartoons of my youth have got to be Jay Ward's Rocky & Bullwinkle series.

I've recently shifted from focusing on collecting only Beatles memorabilia to collecting animation art.

TRAVEL

I love to travel; some of my favorite places include England, the Berner Oberland of Switzerland, British Columbia, and Maui. I've recently become a certified SCUBA diver, and I'm developing my underwater photography skills (yet another hobby my wonderful wife puts up with!) You can see a sampling of fish pictures here.

Strawberry Field, Liverpool, England 1985

Me crossing Abbey Road, London, England 1985

Haleakela crater, Maui, Hawaii 1992

GENEALOGY

In 2005, I traveled with my Dad and my Brother to England in search of information and places related to the Barrow family's roots on my Dad's side. His ancestors emigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800's from the Kent area of Southern England, specifically Ash-Next-Sandwich, Boxley, and Maidstone. We found some churches, graveyards, and even a B&B that used to be the residence for my Great-Great Grandfather's family. Along the way we met many friendly gracious people who were willing to share their time and knowledge of the area with us. I can't wait to go back. For more info and pictures, go here.

POLITICS/PATRIOTISM

I love my country, and I love the Constitution most of all. The damage done to the Constitution since 2001, and the lack of outrage by the average american about it (not helped by the lack attention by the corporate media) simply breaks my heart. I've never belonged to a political party, and seeing the corruption of the Republicans and the cowardice of the majority of the Democrats, I doubt I ever will. I'm proud to be a liberal/progressive/whatever the left is calling itself this week. I try my best to base my values and voting decisions on love and compassion, versus hatred and fear. So there.